Letter: Ritter's insight helpful for council

I had the privilege of working for Tami Ritter when she was the executive director of the Torres Shelter.

The Torres Shelter is a 120-bed year-round homeless shelter in Chico that serves men, women, and families. When Tami began working for the shelter, it was operating only in the coldest months of the year and out of a few local churches on a rotating basis. Tami knew that homelessness is not a seasonal issue and that people experiencing homelessness needed reasonable time to recover and services that would help them identify and implement a plan for self-sufficiency. Tami worked collaboratively with the state to procure grants that would provide much of the funding needed to build a year-round facility and also to provide operations monies needed to run the shelter.

Tami educated the community about the need for a permanent shelter and they rallied to help get it done. The Torres Shelter opened in March 2003.

As a social services worker, it was evident to me that they had chosen the right person to lead the organization from its infancy to a well-developed year-round shelter program. Tami understood the importance of personal responsibility to recovery and she expected each guest and her staff to identify and implement a plan for self-sufficiency that addressed the guest's barriers to housing. Tami's belief in her community, her excellent collaborative skills, and her education, experience and insight would all be an asset to the council.